


I Want You To Want Me

by athena_crikey



Series: Courting Death [4]
Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: AU, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lust at First Sight, M/M, PTSD nightmares, Second Sight - Freeform, assassins amok, psychic Hisoka, psychologically damaged, shameless flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:08:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27292474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: “My heart is an organ; nothing more. It does its job. I don’t consult it in my decisions.”Hisoka laughs, the sound full-bodied as the wine before them. “It was your head, then, that brought you here in your ten thousand dollar suit and your platinum cufflinks? Your head that decided to impress me with your wealth? I would have thought better of it.” He keeps his eyes on Illumi as he tips his wineglass back, drinking without breaking eye contact. “Hearts, though. Hearts make those kinds of foolish decisions.”
Relationships: Hisoka/Illumi Zoldyck
Series: Courting Death [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895986
Comments: 5
Kudos: 147





	I Want You To Want Me

Illumi has met very few memorable people in his life. Most pass through with a plea and a whimper, followed by the steel-sweet scent of blood, and he wastes no mental capacity remembering stammering last words or rictuses of horror. The others – those beneath his attention, the baristas and librarians and bank clerks – he takes no notice of. His family for the most part are simply there, as they always have been. One only notes the foundations of a structure once they’ve been shattered, and there is no one in the world capable of shattering Zeno or Silva Zoldyck. 

And then there was Hisoka. Hisoka who is both childish and more mature than Illumi, who is defenseless but also fearless. Hisoka who is transparent as water, and yet who Illumi can’t understand at all. 

Hisoka, who he can’t stop thinking about. He’s never before allowed himself waking dreams – has never been interested in them. But now he sits in his bay window overlooking the park and reminisces on the sweet smell of Hisoka’s skin, on the experienced confidence in his hands, on the feel of completion the fortune-teller had evoked in him. They thrill him, these memories, his head tilted back to expose the long weakness of his throat as he was taught never to do, his hands caught in the slick velvet of the seat pillows. 

It had been startling to feel so full, when he had never known himself to be empty. Now, though, as he looks around his spartan room and walks down the vast empty corridors of the Zoldyck manor, he feels incomplete. Feels a presence that is missing, a sly smile and laughing eyes and a warm touch. 

No one has touched him in years. Before meeting Hisoka that had seemed proper, seemed right. 

Now his skin burns with hunger for contact. He rubs at it, frustrated, impatient. There will be an opportunity to see the fortune-teller again, when business permits. Until then he will be the stone son he was taught to be, with purpose only in death. 

His traitorous skin, though, stays feverish.

  
***

In his business, opportunities are always there waiting to be exploited. It doesn’t take Illumi long to find more work on America’s west coast, littered as it is with millionaires full to bursting with jealousies and paranoia. It’s always been a fruitful harvest ground.

When he’s working, Illumi travels economy – the private jet and business class draw too much attention. He travels in disguise under a range of passports, his slack face and empty eyes easy to change. 

Today he flies into LAX, the airport a hulking monument to 60s Brutalism and the failure of America’s infrastructure policy, the terminals stained with smoke and air pollution and drastically out of date. 

He stays in Santa Monica for a couple of days and does a job on the outskirts of LA, the grey concrete jungle briefly painted red, then rents a sensible SUV and drives up the coast. 

Illumi likes driving. It occupies just enough of his attention that he can forget the blankness that sometimes wells up in his mind, the long periods of dust-dry barrenness that envelop him like a desert. _Illumi’s in one of his trances_ , Killua used to say, before Killua grew bored with him. And Illumi would haul himself out and blink slowly at him like a salamander emerging from the swamp, and Killua would laugh. 

That was a long time ago now. 

As he drives past thirsty adobe towns and stands of palms and cacti, he wonders what Hisoka knows of trances. They’re the realm of fortune-tellers and mediums, certainly. But Hisoka seems a very untraditional type of clairvoyant. For one thing, he might actually have a gift. 

Illumi’s long, spiderous fingers tighten on the leather steering wheel. The idea is preposterous, of course. And everything about Hisoka is equally so – and he’s a self-admitted liar, to boot. But the things he knows, the way he has stepped so easily and so intimately into Illumi’s life… Illumi can’t explain it.

  
***

He texts Hisoka from a gas station outside town. Until now he hasn’t told the fortune-teller that he’s back on the coast, much less that it was Hisoka who brought him here. Illumi is trained to establish escape routes and keep them clear. But now there’s no backing out. He doesn’t _want_ to back out. He wants to see those golden eyes admiring his body, wants to hear the honey-thick sound of Hisoka’s baritone.

 _I’m here_ , he texts simply while he waits for the SUV’s cavernous tank to fill. 

_?_ comes the reply, a moment later. 

_In San Francisco. Dinner?_

_Working tonight. Come visit._

Illumi feels a momentary rush of disappointment – a sensation like leaden rain briefly pouring over his naked skin. He should have anticipated that Hisoka would be working. He’s seen the man’s bank statements; he knows he doesn’t have much of a financial cushion. Illumi, on the other hand, has a newly-flush bank account. 

_I’ll pay for you to work for me tonight_ , he replies, hooking the pump handle back into its slot and climbing into the vehicle. _Exclusively_ , he adds.

_Oh? Can you afford me?_

Illumi smiles. _Easily._ And then: _Wear something nice. We’re going out._

  
***

He makes a reservation for dinner at one of the city’s more exclusive restaurants, using the name of one of the Zoldyck empire’s Fortune 500 companies. He checks into the Air B&B he rented and changes into the suit he brought – an over-tailored masterpiece in black that fits him like a glove, the jacket a dinner-jacket with silk lapels that shine almost as prettily as his newly-washed hair. His shoes are patent leather, shined by one of the butlers before he left so that he can see his pale face in them rising like a moon when he bends over. His watch is Omega: beautiful, expensive; his cuffs are platinum.

Illumi is used to looking expensive. The Zoldycks have legitimate businesses in addition to their darker, older profession, and he’s often been deployed to galas and fundraising dinners. He knows he’s not good at it – he doesn’t have his father’s charisma or his mother’s cut-glass hostess manners – but he has never gone off script or made a mistake. 

This will be the first time, though, that he’s aimed to impress someone with his riches for personal rather than professional reasons. He wants to see Hisoka’s reaction, to understand if this is why the fortune-teller has latched onto him – a desperate bid to win not just financial security but luxury beyond belief. He’s already proven he doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty in the pursuit of it. 

They arrange for Illumi to pick up Hisoka, who doesn’t have a car. Illumi arrives early, as he always does, and parks across the street to wait for his dinner date. For once his mind doesn’t retreat into the ever-waiting wasteland; instead he lets his thoughts stray into anticipation. The warmth of Hisoka’s lips on his neck, his breathy moans over Illumi’s hips, the feeling of his fingers – 

He sees movement out of the corner of his eye and looks up. Hisoka is exiting his basement apartment, locking the door and turning to jog up the stairs. Illumi’s breath catches in his throat, the rhythms of his body skipping a beat. 

Hisoka looks beautiful – not expensive, not a model of brand-names and expensive materials – but starkly stunning. His red hair is swept back and his pale face shows just touches of makeup at the eyes and lips; no face-paint today. His black pants are a trifle too long but they show off his trim waist, the lines pleasing if not perfect. His jacket is a velvet merlot colour that makes the gold of his eyes gleam like old coins, the lapel coal-black and the fit snug. Probably slightly uncomfortably so, but it shows off his wide shoulders and strong arms. His long nails are the rich colour of old port. 

Illumi raps the glass of his window; even in the noisy bustle of town Hisoka’s eyes flash to him. He smiles easily and crosses the street with his hands in his pockets. He wears no watch. Illumi wonders if it’s frugality or hubris; or perhaps he simply relies on his phone. 

Hisoka rounds the SUV and opens the passenger door, stepping in. He shuts the door behind him and, before Illumi can press the ignition button, leans in for a kiss. His fingers stroke up beneath Illumi’s chin, his nails scraping lightly across his skin; his lips are soft and just slightly damp. He tastes of mouthwash. 

“Mm, you’ve been busy,” he says when they break away. “Painting the jungles of LA red?”

Illumi blinks at him, startled by his own metaphor. Hisoka doesn’t appear to notice. “Surely there are enough local gangs to see to that sort of thing?” 

“Gangs are for the poor,” replies Illumi. “A better class of people requires a more… trustworthy solution.”

“A better class?” says Hisoka, thin eyebrow raised, and Illumi remembers: prostitute mother, orphan, runaway, destitute. Somehow here in his velvet, Hisoka looks like what he is not: Illumi’s equal. 

“A richer class, then,” he corrects himself. “Money brings a lot of paranoia.”

“That sounds almost personal, Illumi.”

Illumi shrugs lithely. “My family is very private. I wouldn’t say paranoid; just… reclusive.”

“And yet they send their heir out into the wide world to earn bread for them.”

“The family business is important. It’s who we are; who we’ve always been.”

“Some things are inescapable. A profession, in my experience, is not,” replies Hisoka. 

Illumi feels himself bridling, the hairs at the back of his neck rising. “Are you saying you don’t approve of my work?”

“I’m saying what you do is your choice. Not mine, not your parents’. Not my place to judge.”

“Good,” replies Illumi, choosing to ignore the statement about his parents. “I don’t have any time for self-righteousness.” He reaches out to start the car. Hisoka’s hand slips down to stroke over his – not stopping him, simply relishing the touch. 

“But you have time for me,” he says, voice low and throaty, his fingers dry and soft as down. “I like that.”

Illumi presses the button and the engine roars to life. He shoulder-checks and pulls out into the street at just below the speed limit, his face half-turned to hide the colour in his cheeks. Beside him, Hisoka grins.

  
***

The restaurant is called La Papavero, and it is artfully empty. Each table is occupied, but there is so much floor space between them that each set of diners seems almost to be in their own world, separated by ivory columns and lush potted plants. Soft music comes from the ceiling and there’s the jingle of cutlery on porcelain plates and the soft clink of crystal glasses. The restaurant is in twilight, waiters navigating skillfully through the dimness.

Illumi announces himself to the Maitre D’ who nods graciously and welcomes them, then accompanies them personally to their table – one with a view out over the bay. There are 3 set menus to choose from, he explains, handing them heavy paper menus sandwiched between shiny leather covers; there are, of course, no prices. Illumi watches Hisoka rather than the menu as he flips it open, sees his eyes harden slightly as he takes in the options. 

“The bill is mine tonight,” Illumi tells him after the Maitre D’ departs; “Just part of hiring you.”

Hisoka glances up. His gaze warms from steady to amused. “And what do you expect me to do to earn my keep?” he asks. Beneath the table his toe finds Illumi’s ankle, brushing slyly against it. 

Illumi wonders abruptly whether Hisoka has ever ventured into his mother’s profession. He quashes the idea as soon as it occurs – Hisoka is right, their professions are none of each others’ business. He finds himself imagining instead Hisoka’s foot climbing his leg, the smooth leather of his shoe cool against the warmth of Illumi’s calf, knee, thigh. The hardness of it creeping higher, spreading him open beneath the modest veil of the snow-white tablecloth, his pulse quickening…

But no. Whatever his motives, he is here under his family’s name. There are appearances to keep up. 

“Perhaps I was simply interested in your company,” he says as he glances through the menu, printed on old-fashioned tallow-yellow pages. 

Hisoka’s grin is charming, with a hint of lasciviousness to it. “That would be a world first. Look at you, all dressed up like the heir to the fortune you are. And you’ve called up _me_ for some company?” His eyes are dancing with humour, but Illumi can sense the strength behind it. Hisoka is no push-over. “Why do I feel that tonight you are the one who wants to do the wooing? Fancy clothes, fancy car, _extremely_ fancy restaurant. Last time we met I cooked Indian with chicken that was past its expiry date.” 

A brief frown crosses Illumi’s face, the feel of it like static from lightning. “You didn’t tell me that.” 

“Because then you wouldn’t have eaten, and how awkward would _that_ have been?” He closes his menu and sets it down. “Are you trying to impress me?” he asks, straight-out.

“Are you impressed?”

“I’m flattered. But money, beyond a certain point, means very little to me. I have what I need; I don’t need more.” 

“You told me you like gourmet food,” says Illumi, almost accusingly. 

Hisoka rests his chin in the palm of his hand, his long burgundy nails slipping into his brighter hair like old scabs over new blood. 

“Gourmet isn’t synonymous with expensive. But I appreciate the gesture; or would, if I understood the spirit in which it was made. What is it you want from me?”

 _You_ , throbs Illumi’s heart, his skin hot and hungry again beneath his fine clothes. “I want to understand you. Everything about you is a contradiction. I told you before: I don’t like mysteries.”

“And yet, you like me,” says Hisoka, voice low and seductive. The hardness is melting out of him, now that whatever it was he feared has failed to materialize. “Don’t you know why, Illumi?”

Illumi blinks blankly. But before he can answer, the waiter appears from the dimness around them. “May I take your orders?”

With the ease of a sailboat tacking Hisoka changes topics and orders, requesting the butternut squash ravioli, sea bass, and house salad. Illumi, following along less gracefully, chooses tagliatelle with octopus ink and a rack of lamb and zucchini. The waiter disappears to be followed by the sommelier, who consults with Illumi on a choice of wines. They settle on a Spanish red. The wine is brought, opened, sampled. Illumi blesses it and it’s poured. Then, finally, they’re left in peace. 

“Your confidence is impressive,” he tells Hisoka. 

“I’ve never had a multi-millionaire run halfway around the globe to see me again so quickly. And on such intimate terms,” replies Hisoka, his foot ghosting up Illumi’s leg but stopping short of his knee. “You say I’m a mystery. But perhaps the real enigma is your own heart. You’ve never listened to it before, have you?”

“My heart is an organ; nothing more. It does its job. I don’t consult it in my decisions.”

Hisoka laughs, the sound full-bodied as the wine before them. “It was your head, then, that brought you here in your ten thousand dollar suit and your platinum cufflinks? Your head that decided to impress me with your wealth? I would have thought better of it.” He keeps his eyes on Illumi as he tips his wineglass back, drinking without breaking eye contact. “Hearts, though. Hearts make those kinds of foolish decisions.”

“Maybe I just want to know the secret of your fortune-telling.”

Hisoka’s eyes curve in amusement. “Mm, getting colder,” he murmurs.

“There’s nothing else.”

“Really? You came back so quickly, so decisively, just for a little secret?” His painted lips curl in an expression halfway between amusement and scorn. “Surely you can come up with a better story. Tell me what you _feel_ , Illumi. Tell me what you _want_.”

Want. The one feeling he is supposed never to allow. The one that has been eating away at him like plague since his first meeting with the fortune-teller. “You don’t understand,” he says, voice low and harsh as broken glass. “Zoldycks buy, and they take, and they steal, but they don’t _want_.”

Hisoka’s hand creeps across the table, his thumb finding Illumi’s and stroking down the whiteness of his skin – skin that has never been loved, not by his parents or his siblings or even the sun. “Don’t listen to all the petty little voices in your head, love. They’re nothing but ghosts.”

Illumi looks from Hisoka’s hand covering his up to his face. “I should listen to you instead?” his voice is cold, empty.

“You should listen to _you_ ,” replies Hisoka. 

“You don’t understand,” says Illumi again, shaking his head. “Here,” he taps his chest, “is nothing but wasteland.”

It’s then that the food arrives.

  
***

Hisoka doesn’t turn the conversation back to matters of the heart, focusing instead on stories about his work at the Fair, about customers and charlatans. Illumi mostly listens and Hisoka seems okay with that, his talk filling the awkward space between them. They get through dinner, then coffee and dessert – gelato for Illumi, chocolate mousse for Hisoka – without returning to fraught topics.

The Maitre D’ sees them out into true twilight, the summer evening slowly darkening around them. They walk back slowly to the SUV, Hisoka’s hand finding his beneath a humming streetlight and pressing their skin together. Illumi has to swallow a gasp; this contact is what he’s been missing, has been hungering for ever since he left. Somehow – clairvoyance or no – he thinks Hisoka knows that. 

When they get back to the vehicle, rather than allowing Illumi to round to the driver’s side Hisoka intertwines their fingers, pushes him up against the door and kisses him. It’s a hungrier kiss than the one he had given in greeting, his tongue slipping into Illumi’s mouth and plundering. His mouth is hot now, his fingers woven together with Illumi’s and their hands pressed back against the coolness of the SUV. 

Illumi experiences a moment of pure, sweet contentment – the fulfilment of a dream much wished for. Then he finds his feet and pushes back, their bodies hard against one another, Hisoka’s hips against his hips and his knee levering Illumi’s legs apart. Oxygen becomes an essential commodity and their kisses start to break apart as they struggle to breathe while still finding themselves in each other. Their kisses flare and back like flames flickering in a grate, passion building steadily. Illumi feels Hisoka’s prick pressing into the shallow dip of his hip and moans softly. 

Hisoka lets go of his hand and grabs the back seat door handle; the keys are close enough that the SUV unlocks. Hisoka pulls it open and bodily lifts Illumi inside, his hands on his waist. Illumi scrambles into the darkness and Hisoka follows, the door shutting quietly behind them. 

The SUV is between two streetlights and with that and the tinted windows the back seat is dark. Illumi doesn’t care, his heart is racing, his body hungry for a pleasure it’s so rarely known. Hisoka stretches himself onto the seat and pulls Illumi into his lap, Illumi awkwardly straddling him and suddenly very aware of his own erection. 

Hisoka’s making low, breathless sounds as he rolls his hips up against Illumi, his mouth sucking marks into the pale skin of Illumi’s throat. Illumi rides him unceremoniously, grinding down and feeling the thick, throbbing pleasure of the pressure. Hisoka’s hands find the buttons of his shirt, fumbling them open and slipping inside to fondle his nipples, then trace the long line of his spine and the hillocks of his ribs before tracing down his sensitive flanks. 

“Don’t tell me you don’t want this,” he whispers, his words puffing over the wet marks at Illumi’s neck and making him shiver. “Don’t tell me you don’t know what desire is. We both know why you came back.”

Illumi makes a high sound of protest in the back of his throat, his eyes rolling upwards as Hisoka pulls him down flush against his groin and simultaneously licks at the shell of his ear. Then his hands are undoing Illumi’s pants, pressing inside the back down beneath his underwear to knead claw-tipped fingers into his ass. 

“It’s not about mysteries, or money,” pants Hisoka, pulling his cheeks apart, massaging deep into him while he rolls his hips against Illumi. It’s both too much and not enough, and then a finger slips up and rubs over his puckered entrance and Illumi jerks as though shocked. “At the bottom, you want to be wanted. The one vice they couldn’t beat out of you. Well, I want you.” He presses a knuckle into Illumi, the sensation hot and tight and strange. “I want you to want me,” he whispers. 

A moment later, before Illumi can reply, he’s rolling them over. It nearly goes disastrously wrong, nearly tumbles Illumi into the foot well, but when he’s done he’s on top and he’s shoving Illumi’s pants and underwear down and then doing the same for his own. He takes their two swollen, reddened cocks together in his hand even as he shoves his balls against Illumi’s, stroking them. 

Illumi stifles a cry at the unexpected rush of ecstasy that floods him, Hisoka’s thumb rubbing over his weeping tip, and it’s so sensitive and so, so good. Hisoka’s cursing as he pumps his hand, his face hovering over Illumi’s, his free hand propped up on the door and Illumi has a brief fear that he’ll slip and open the door and they’ll tumble out onto the street and horrify the other patrons of La Papavero. But then the haze of need is falling over him, his hips twitching with each move of Hisoka’s hand, his head thrown back against the hard unforgiving wall. 

He feels his orgasm overtaking him, feels pleasure cresting within him. “Hisoka,” he grunts, and then he’s coming, spilling over Hisoka’s hand and down onto his half-naked stomach. Hisoka keeps pulling for another few seconds before following him, his eyes hooded. 

Then it’s just the two of them in the cool stickiness of the SUV, clothes rumpled and smelling of sex. 

“Did you bring any tissues?” asks Illumi.

  
***

They go back to Hisoka’s place, hastily cleaned with some Kleenex Hisoka finds in one of his pockets. With a bottle of scotch and some lube they retire to bed.

Hisoka is pleasure-bent and seems to have forgotten his quest to make Illumi admit why he came here, which is fine by Illumi. He happily drinks scotch and sucks cock and lets Hisoka rut him into the mattress until his ass is stretched and sore. 

Their exploits take them into the early morning by Illumi’s watch, both the scotch and the lube growing steadily lower in the bottle. It’s after his third full fucking that Hisoka sinks into the mattress, Illumi long and languid in his arms, and mumbles something into his ear about sleeping on the couch before he falls asleep. 

Illumi is blissed out and exhausted and sore, and is sure as hell not going to sleep naked on Hisoka’s couch; he pulls the blankets more evenly over top himself and lets sleep wash over him.

  
***

He wakes up to the sound of someone crying. Not loud, ringing sobs, but soft gasping breaths and a tight throat.

Hisoka. Hisoka, who’s spooning him from behind, and who is fighting to breathe. Illumi frowns, then reaches out and illuminates the backlight on his watch. 2:53am. 

“Crybaby,” whispers Hisoka, through his racked breaths. “Can’t abide… crybabies…” He’s holding his hand, palm pressed hard against the back of the other. 

Illumi goes stiff. Then, slowly, he turns over and puts his hands on Hisoka’s shoulders. “Wake up. Hisoka. Wake up.”

Hisoka’s breathing catches, his body twitching as consciousness returns. “Don’t – iron – _fuck_ ,” he mutters, with increasing clarity. He takes a deep, shaky breath and lets it out. “Fuck,” he says again. Illumi feels him reach up to wipe his face; he sniffles. “I told you to sleep on the couch,” he adds, voice still rough-edged but suddenly hard. 

“You were dreaming.”

“I know that. That’s why you were supposed to sleep on the couch.”

“You were dreaming _about me_ ,” adds Illumi. He reaches out and finds Hisoka’s hands clenched once more together. His palm pressed over the place where, fifteen years ago, Kikyo had shoved an iron against Illumi’s own tender flesh. 

Hisoka sighs and sits up. “I’m going to get some water. Do you want some?” He makes no room for objections. 

“Okay.”

The bed creaks as he rises; by the sound of his naked footsteps Illumi tracks his progress through the room and out into the kitchen. The sink turns on, cups filling, then he’s back. “Here,” he says from close by, and Illumi reaches out and sweeps his fingers until he finds the glass Hisoka’s holding for him. 

“Are you going to tell me about it?” asks Illumi, as Hisoka rounds the bed to his side and sits down.

“Why should I? You were there, weren’t you? You were four – five? And she burned you with the iron because you showed weakness after falling off a chair. What’s to tell?” he takes a long, gulping drink from his glass. 

“You saw it,” says Illumi, flatly. “Like you were there. Like you were _me_.”

“Bingo.”

“But that’s impossible.”

“Oh, fuck it Illumi. If you don’t want to believe, don’t, but I’m not going to argue about it now. If you won’t sleep on the couch, I will.” He finishes his glass, sets it down, and makes to rise. Illumi reaches out and, thanks to years of training, finds his wrist even in the darkness. 

“I want to believe you,” he says. “I want to want you. But there’s just… I… my head’s not right.” So many memories, so much pain, pushing him further and further into the wasteland. 

“Whose is? I see the past and the future, you think I’m on the rails? All we can do is look after ourselves. Because no one else is going to.”

“I know,” agrees Illumi. 

Hisoka sinks down on the mattress, turning. “Are you going to tell me why you came back?” he asks.

“Because I wanted to,” answers Illumi eventually, as if pulling back his skin to lay bare his heart. It feels uncomfortable, but less so than he had imagined it would. Not impossible, certainly. 

He hears the bed creak as Hisoka leans forward; he stays perfectly still. Hisoka kisses him crookedly, his mouth on the corner of Illumi’s. “Thanks,” he says, after. 

“For coming back? Or for admitting it?”

“Mm. Both.” He pulls away, rising. “See you tomorrow, Illumi.”

  
***

He wakes rapidly as always, transitioning from sleep to full consciousness in a single blink. He’s in Hisoka’s apartment, in Hisoka’s bed, because the fortune-teller left to sleep on the couch after having a nightmare.

After having a nightmare of Illumi’s making.

He gets up slowly, dressing himself in just his pants and undershirt, leaving the rest of his clothes on the floor where they fell. His state of dress is modest enough to venture out into the apartment with its sub-street level window, a window through which bright daylight is filtering.

On the couch below the window is a heap of blankets from which protrudes a shock of red hair and a single pale foot. Illumi looks at them for a minute, mind surprisingly soft, then goes into the kitchen and starts making coffee.

By the time he’s found all the components and made the brew Hisoka is sitting up, stretching luxuriously, utterly naked beneath the quilt he’s pulled over himself. It’s black with pink and silver insets, a kind of galaxy pattern. 

Illumi pours the coffee out into two mugs and brings it over, sitting down beside Hisoka. “So,” he says.

“So,” replies Hisoka in amusement, taking his cup and sipping at the scalding coffee. 

“You’re for real.”

Hisoka tilts his head to the side, smiling secretively. “That’s for you to decide.”

“You dreamed my memories.”

“Mm. My control is fine while awake, but sadly lacking while asleep. It’s too easy for bad pasts to intrude.”

“So you sleep alone,” says Illumi.

“So I sleep alone,” agrees Hisoka. “I’ve never minded. Until now.”

Illumi blinks. 

“I would quite like to sleep with you, love,” he says. “Perhaps someday I’ll find the cure to it.”

“And then how would you make your money?”

Hisoka smiles. “I have no fear of learning new skills. Or exploiting old ones. I’m very handy with a knife.”

Illumi remembers the bloody pictures Hisoka had sent to him, proof of death. “It’s not a profession I can recommend,” he says. 

Hisoka shrugs easily. “Then perhaps we can find something new. The two of us.”

In his coffee, Illumi sees his reflection. Dead-eyed and pale, more like a corpse than a person. Nothing but a husk. And yet, for the first time he has found something he wants. 

“Perhaps,” he says.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Just FYI this was updated with a bit more added onto the end a couple hours after the original post, as I felt it needed just a little more closure to tie it off.


End file.
